Chinese leader Xi Jinping has built a sprawling security system to prevent violent forces from destabilizing society. A new wave of deadly attacks is putting pressure on officials to expand that surveillance state. China was stunned this month by its deadliest act of public violence since a string of terrorism strikes rocked the remote Xinjiang region in 2014. Dozens were hospitalized and 35 killed by the bloody car-ramming in Zhuhai city that was the culmination of a spate of violence this year -- mostly stabbings -- which have sparked nationwide anxiety. Xi responded to spouts of ethnic violence a decade ago by installing a network of facial recognition cameras, tightening Internet controls and expanding a national resident database.

In this position paper, we discuss the critical need for integrating zero trust (ZT) principles into next-generation communication networks (5G/6G). We highlight the challenges and introduce the concept of an intelligent zero trust architecture (i-ZTA) as a security framework in 5G/6G networks with untrusted components. While network virtualization, software-defined networking (SDN), and service-based architectures (SBA) are key enablers of 5G networks, operating in an untrusted environment has also become a key feature of the networks. Further, seamless connectivity to a high volume of devices has broadened the attack surface on information infrastructure. Network assurance in a dynamic untrusted environment calls for revolutionary architectures beyond existing static security frameworks. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first position paper that presents the architectural concept design of an i-ZTA upon which modern artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms can be developed to provide information security in untrusted networks. We introduce key ZT principles as real-time Monitoring of the security state of network assets, Evaluating the risk of individual access requests, and Deciding on access authorization using a dynamic trust algorithm, called MED components. To ensure ease of integration, the envisioned architecture adopts an SBA-based design, similar to the 3GPP specification of 5G networks, by leveraging the open radio access network (O-RAN) architecture with appropriate real-time engines and network interfaces for collecting necessary machine learning data. Therefore, this work provides novel research directions to design machine learning based components that contribute towards i-ZTA for the future 5G/6G networks.

For 40-year-old Mao Ya, the facial recognition camera that allows access to her apartment house is simply a useful convenience. "If I am carrying shopping bags in both hands, I just have to look ahead and the door swings open," she said. "And my 5-year-old daughter can just look up at the camera and get in. It's good for kids because they often lose their keys." But for the police, the cameras that replaced the residents' old entry cards serve quite a different purpose.